


Alone Time

by Yass_Rani



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, My First Work in This Fandom, malcolm has 0 self preservation skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:33:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yass_Rani/pseuds/Yass_Rani
Summary: Malcolm is in the hospital after John Watkins, and he has a night terror.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Alone Time

“You’re a survivor.”

_His mother’s words echoed in his head and bounced off the room’s walls as Malcolm slowly returned to the world, trying desperately to grasp at the bare threads of consciousness that threatened to slip through his fingers at any moment._

_Malcolm’s senses began to orient themselves with his surroundings – the dim light of the room, the clanking of chains – he realised with a jolt that his hands were cuffed and chained to a ring in the ground – the throbbing in his head made him close his eyes for a moment before he adjusted to his new surroundings._

_He rolled on to his back and tried to get his breathing under control, but all he heard was his own frantic heartbeats and the chains clanking as if they were mocking his efforts while he screamed for help. As if they only existed to remind him that he was powerless and alone – no matter how much he yelled, he could not be saved._

Malcolm felt himself losing energy, losing his breath, his voice going soft as he whispered softly, “ _Help. Anybody_ -,” his eyes going out of focus again as his brain battled to hold onto something, some semblance of sense that would help him think.

_Because he needed to get out of here. Fast._

Black spots danced around him as he lost consciousness again – or maybe gathered it, who knows.

_“No one can hear you scream.”_

_“You sure? I’m a pretty good screamer. Had a lot of practice”_

Fragments of his little ‘alone time’ in the cellar came back to him, dialogues, blinding flashes of floodlights and cameras, a deep voice taunting him every time he gained consciousness and _pain_. His memory brought back everything that happened in broken bits, almost making him think all that was a series of hallucinations if it wasn’t for the pain coursing through his body reminding every bit of him that all of it was real. That he actually was kept in a cellar for who knows how long by a John Watkins – which probably wasn’t even his real name - psychopathic serial killer, who, in the first place, knew about Malcolm courtesy of his dear father.

Martin Whitly. The _goddamn_ Surgeon.

_“We’ve always had a connection, Malcolm.”_

He tried to drift back into reality, to force himself into coming back, trying his best to stop seeing him and stop hearing his voice.

_“Plus, I’m not a killer.”_

He heard himself. He remembered his talk with Watkins the first time he woke up in the cellar. He remembered trying to figure out what he wanted, why he’d held Malcolm, why he’d tried to contact him in the first place, and all he got was-

_“Not yet.”_

Taunts. Rambles from Watkins as he tried to convince the boy to find his calling, to turn into what he was. To go through trials, to emerge a new man, to try to _survive_.

_He talked to Malcolm about his childhood. Or more specifically, his time in the cabin in the woods. In return, Malcolm tried to shoot his shot at understanding the man more – probing into what he knew about his childhood, the punishments, his grandparents’ teachings, how and why he’d killed his grandfather. How he’d crushed him, and many, many others after that._

_The detective tried to reason with him. “You can change. You can evolve,” he’d told him. He wanted Watkins to realise he could move on and simultaneously find himself a way out._

_“I am a saviour! This. Is. My. Calling,” Watkins yelled at him, smirking as the boy flinched when he saw the knife he held._

Malcolm pried his eyes open, ignoring his body protesting his efforts to start functioning – only to shut them back again as blinding white lights almost burned his retina. A small part of his brain cheered as it realised he might be in a hospital, which the rest of his brain was too tired to realise.

Just like that, he felt himself being dragged back into that cellar in his mind, his body not even trying to listen to the small part of his brain that yelled at him to wake up because right now, visions of the cellar were better than the pain shooting through him whenever he tried to stay awake.

_He asked about the girl in the box from his nightmares, tried to remember what happened during the camping trip. He remembered stabbing John Watkins with the penknife his father bought him._

_Which led to an immediate force on his chest. Wide-eyed, Malcolm gasped for breath as excruciating pain shot through him, the shock enveloped all his other senses and he felt something warm spread onto his shirt and-_

_It hurt._

_John twisted the knife into his guts and Malcolm struggled for breath as he collapsed to the floor clutching at his abdomen, blood coating his hands and dripping to the floor._

Everything turned to black.

Malcolm remembered what happened next. Or rather, something that didn’t actually happen – his hallucinations after he was stabbed.

_‘I can create a place of peace and safety no matter where I am.’_

He remembered – vaguely – seeing his therapist standing there, encouraging him to read his daily affirmations. He remembered realising it was a hallucination, convincing himself it wasn’t real.

_“Collect your thoughts,” she said, “The more you breathe, the more ordered your thoughts will be.”_

_He had to stay alive._

_He was losing a lot of blood._

_His first priority was to stop the bleeding._

He remembered tearing his shirt and using what was left of his energy to staunch the bleeding as he tried to breathe and _think_ about anything he could do to stay alive.

_He was having a stress-induced hallucination._

_He felt a tiny surge of pride for realising he was having a hallucination._

_A part of him thought Watkins would shed a light on the girl in the box, solve his problems._

_That part was desperately trying to convince him that yes, Watkins would actually do that._

_The more logical part of him tried to convince him to let it go, to stop tying his trauma to her._

_Malcolm spent what seemed like an eternity battling with himself, trying to decide what part to listen to – stay for Watkins, or get the hell out._

Now, if it was someone else, they’d immediately work on the latter. But this was Malcolm. Who, as his mother, Gil and everyone who knew him had said, possessed no self-preservation skills at all.

_As he gathered his thoughts while trying to grip consciousness, he came to a conclusion._

_He had to stop trying to profile for once and protect himself._

_Now that he got that established, his mind flipped back to figure out where he was._

_“Where it all started,” he heard Watkins’ voice in his head._

He remembered talking to Watson again, realising why he’d stabbed him all those years ago, realising why they’d brought him on their trip.

Malcolm remembered, with the same searing pain he first felt when he heard it – that his father wanted to kill him.

The rest of his ‘alone time’ came back to him in flashes.

_His family was about to be murdered._

_He heard his father taunting him, getting him to think, challenging him like Martin always did, to save his family._

_And then it struck him. Where he was. Where it all started._

_Under their home, the hobby room, the cellar, where Martin first pursued his little hobby._

_He needed to get out. Upstairs, to his family, because he knew his mother was home, desperately working on her ideas to get Martin Whitly in jail as long as she could – he wondered if she, or Ainsley, even knew he was missing, much less that he was right under the house._

_He knew what he had to do, and he knew it was the only way he’d get out as soon as possible._

_Chop-chop._

_Ignoring the stabbing pain from his now dislocated thumb and the stab wound, Malcolm ran out the secret passage into the chimney and got to the house._

He thrashed around on his bed. The restraints they’d put on his wrists held fast – Jessica knew this would happen – but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of his body.

_He was moving as fast as he could – tripping and stumbling across the halls as he located the whimpers and screams belonging to his family. He knew Jessica and Ainsley had locked themselves somewhere, they’d somehow realised they were in danger and Malcolm thanked every power in existence that they did._

The local anesthesia he was administered didn’t let him feel it, but blood trickled out of the wound in his abdomen as the stitches popped and his skin reopened, drenching the pristine white of the sheets to a dark red.

_Malcolm heard a sharp sound, wood splintering and Jessica’s scream cut through the air. Panic surged through him – he rushed through the hall towards the sound, coming face to face with the man who’d tormented him for so long._

_John Watkins stood there with an axe in his hand as he stared at Jessica – who was gasping and trying her best to do something, but she was paralysed._

“WATKINS!!”

Malcolm wasn’t sure if he said that in the moment or his recollection – aka his night terror – but it was obvious pretty quickly.

The monitors beeped and alarms went off as Jessica rushed into the room, Gil right on her heels. She gasped when she saw the blood spread all over the sheets – a stark contrast to Malcolm’s pale face that was set into a deep frown as he thrashed around trying to get out of the restraints – yelling for a doctor and trying her best to calm down herself before she could try to get her son to get out of whatever dark place he was in.

_“Malcolm! You’re okay, it’s okay,” he heard his mother’s voice._

Except it felt like he was underwater and she was calling out to him from somewhere far away – which was odd because Jessica was right here, holding him after they’d realised they were safe.

“Hey? Kid? You’re okay. We’re here. We’re all safe, You’re in the hospital,” The same voice that he’d heard so many times, a voice that brought him back, something that always grounded him washed over him as he recognized Gil.

Malcolm took a deep breath, wincing when it made pain shoot through him before he slowly opened his eyes to see a blur of salt and pepper hair and soft, brown eyes hovering over him. Gil’s face morphed from a tensed frown into a tired smile and the skin around his lips and eyes crinkled into soft lines and Malcolm's azure gaze shifted to his mother, also with the same expression with tears swimming in her eyes that showed how relieved they both were to see Malcolm in a better state.

“Hey mother,” he smiled at her, knowing full well he was in for a lecture the moment he got back home.

Sure enough, Jessica’s face flashed immediately from soft worry to annoyance at her son, only to receive a chuckle from Gil – he knew the family well enough to know what was happening.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, kid. You’ve gotta stay in bed until the bleeding stops.”

“Ah don’t worry, Gil, it’s internal. That’s where the blood’s supposed to be,” Malcolm snickered at his own joke, looking at Jessica – who looked extremely annoyed now – and Gil, who grinned at him again, happy to see the Malcolm who loved his stupid dad jokes.

A nervous giggle erupted from the back of the room as Edrisa walked to the bed with a root beer lollipop in hand – Malcolm’s favourite – smiling at Malcolm and receiving a wink in return, causing her cheeks to turn the same colour as a tomato while the detective simply began to unwrap the candy with a childlike smile on his face.

And right now, all was well.

At least until Ainsley would see he woke up, that is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the request on Tumblr!  
> I haven’t written whump before, so I tried my best on here. I hope this is close to what you asked me for!
> 
> If you liked it, please leave kudos, comment, and subscribe!


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